My posts

Well right now in ELT we are learning about the Lord’s Resistance Army or the LRA. It is a rebel group that has been fighting against the Uganda government for a few decades now. The story behind this is really sad. What the LRA does is they basically kidnap children from there homes in villages and force them to do usually become either a bodyguard, a soldier, or the women are usually made into sex slaves. These children are forced to walk from there homes in the villages for miles at night, to get to the city where they can sleep in bus stations, under benches, and in the park because it is safer to sleep there. Then the kids who aren’t lucky and are kidnapped by the LRA are forced to do the most horrible things. Every morning the kids in he LRA wake up to go to fight or to kill other people. They are also told repeatedly that if anyone tries to escape you must beat them to death, and if you don’t you will be killed. Also if anyone tries to escape you will be killed no matter what. When we were learning about this yesterday I was running so many thoughts through my mind. I was trying to relate with the stories we were hearing but I couldn’t. There was no way i was going to be able t relate to anybody who has killed another person out of force and has been kidnapped and turned into a child soldier because…. I wasn’t. Its hard to sit there and listen to these stories and think about all the times I tell people I am so poor. To these people I would be a very wealthy man. If we all sat and took the time to think about the fact that none of us will ever have to go through this. We should all be more appreciative are stuff and think about how much more appreciative we would be if we lived in these conditions in Uganda. My message is just to think.

Stress, stress, stress. I don’t know where to start. Lately I have let stress over come me and it has effected me a lot. I am letting school, my parents, basketball, and my social life all over come me. I need to regain control. I am starting with basketball. Recently I have gone through a period where my shot was very off and I wasn’t into going to the gym. Next my parents were stressing me out trying to interfere with what was going on and trying to figure it out for me. When they do that all it does is push me away. My school work is becoming harder and harder, sometimes when I am in things like math I don’t even understand what I am learning. On top of all that I have a rigorous schedule. Here it is:

Monday- School, After school- I hav practice, i go to the gym, and i do push-ups and bar dips.

Tuesday- School, no practice, I go to the gym for about three hours, push ups and sit ups

Wednesday- School, jumping and conditioning night, 1 hour of jumping drills, sit ups, run 2 to 3 miles.

Thursday- school, practice, gym, push ups, pull ups, and bar dips.

Friday- school, gym, hang out with my friends

Saturday & Sunday- 4 or more games and a little hang out time.

All this was bothering me until i bean to use my stressors against themselves. To fix the basketball I am going to start sticking to my weekly schedule without complaints, and imrpoving my game to its best. I decided instead of letting my parents interfere completely I would tell them the problems I am having with them and let them know ways we could fix it. Then I could listen to what they had to say and we could come up with a compromise. That worked well, for real. My social life my parents said they will make more time in my schedule to be able to hang out with my friends so I will have a good balance for playing basketball and hanging out. My school work, I basically just got to pay better attention in class to what my teachers are saying and what we are learning. By doin this I have resolved my problems and I feel better then ever.

Tips:

1. Don’t let the stress get to you from the start. But if you can’t do this…

2.Stay Calm. Don’t yell at your parents try not to let your emotions go wild.

3. Don’t always think you can do it all yourself. Its okay to ask for help every once and a while.

4. Everything that is stressing you try to turn these things to your advantage( as i described above).

5. Don’t make a big deal of something small in proportion.

6. Final one, something that can help I would say go to your parents. They will help, just try to talk to them calmly.

Link: Moose’s Can money buy happiness?

Personally I think money can buy happiness, in certain situations. For instance, in the movie the pursuit of happiness he is living the lowest possible lifestyle. He, and his son are running from Shelter to shelter as he interns for a job he wants to get. I haven’t seen the movie yet but from what I see in the credits II would say it is a very touching movie. It makes me want to stop to think about how my life would be so much different and really what I would do if my possessions, my clothes, and my home all gone. It is a scary thought. I think being homeless would bring a family together but I don’t think it is the lifestyle I would want to live everyday. What I mean by that is that the one thing no matter if you have no money, no extra clothes, or no home, you would still have family. It seems like spending all that time with your family would bring you so much closer together. If we really stop and think about it most of us are not that close with our parents/siblings. Most of us argue with our siblings and our parents. I know some of the time it seems like all I use my parents for is money and a ride to my friends’ houses, the movies, the mall, etc. Then I go back to thinking of a homeless lifestyle. It seems that you would talk with your parents you would be able to connect with your parents, and because you don’t have that money and sometime not even a ride you get a chance to spend more time with your family. Sometimes it is hard to tell which of us lives the better life on a more “emotional” level rather than a “possessions” level. I think that every person does deserve to have a home and money to feed there families though. Recalling the movie one of the saddest parts is when the main character gives a man 5 dollars that asks for a cab ride. We would think that 5 dollars oh well we can just go get another five dollars some other time. At this part in the movie he stands there looking in his wallet. He has 7 dollars to for him and his son. Thats all. We give five dollars and we get more money, where as he gives five dollars. and that is more than 60 percent of the money to his name. All I am saying is next time you ask for five dollars or you ask for a ride from your parents just think. Think about all the things you could do without using money. Think.

Well I am no movie reviewer but if I was I would give this movie a 6 out 5 stars. It was one of the most inspirational movies I have ever seen. Personally, being into sports I love football and basketball movies like Glory Road, and Remember the Titans. This movie was a little different. One of the most shocking parts of the movie is before the beginning credits even come. While I sat there in the theater the screen went black and then in the most serious lettering I have ever seen it said, “This is a true story”. After the movie I really thought about that first part. What the people who experienced this must have gone through. If you don’t know the story about Marshall, a football team, the coaches, parents, recruiters, and fans all were on a plane ride back from an away game. The plane was struck down and crashed in a near by town forest area. All 75 people on the plane ended up dying. I thought about what some of those people were and what some people lost. I don’t know what I would do. I really have no idea what I would do if I lost somebody. In the movie they were talking about all the losses. Some people lost brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers. Some people ended up losing both parents. Let alone from the issues with sports at school, what some families personally lost. I know at if I lost a family member whether it was my mom, my dad, or my annoying at times brother, or even a best friend, I would be devastated. Life seems like it would be hard to go by day to day knowing that you will never see that person again. Never have the good times and the bad times you and that special person shared. It would be heartbreaking. Really the message I am just tying to send to you is that it is important to appreciate what you have now so that when it is gone you know you were able to get as much time with them as you could. At the young age you are now you should still hang out with your parents and chill with your friends so when that day comes when you guys may not be together anymore, you still have so many memories with them. It’s important to remember.

1. I want to be able to connect myself to multiple things. (Movies, books, world news, etc.) To expand on this I want to find things that I can really connect to, on a more personal level. (I want to present this in the form of a few blogs.
2. I also want to be able to prove that blogs are a lot better then writing to a prompt. (I want to prove it by comparing and contrasting my prompts from last year to my blog post this year.)(I want to present this by showing a prompt document and a blog document I have written.

3. I want to figure out the levels of importance to al the things that are closest to me. I want to be able to flush out each characteristic of me and figure out how much I really like that characterstic. ( A blog post talking about how much each thing I use and am with and then sayin how life would be wihout it for each thing I list.)